F 74 
.U9 P43 
Copy 1 



HISTORICAL REMARKS 



CONCERNING THE 



Mechanic Street Burial Ground, 



CITY OF WORCESTER, 



Offered to the Joint Committee of the Legislature of 
Massachusetts, 



Marcli 14, 1878. 

By rev. GEORGE ALLEN 

OF WORCESTER. 



First published in Numbers in the Bay State Ledger, 
July and August, 1846. 



printed by MESSRS. TYLER & SEAGRAVE, SPY JOB OFFICE, 

No. 442 Main Street, Worcester. 
1878. 



HISTORICAL REMARKS 



CONCERNING THE 



Mechanic Street Burial Ground, 



CITY OF WORCESTER, 



Offered to the Joint Committer of the Legislature of 
Massachusetts. 



Miarcli 14, 1878, 



By rev. GEORGE ALLEN 

of WORCESTER. 



PRINTED BY MESSRS. TYLER & SEAGRAVE, SPY JOB OFFICE, 

No. 442 Main Street, Worcester. 
1878. 



F1^ 



In Excuauge 
iuner. Ant. Soo. 

25 il iHOI 



To the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Rei^re- 
sentatives of this Commonwealth, now and here convened 
to inquire, consider and report, on the question cojicerning 
the Mechanic Street Burial Ground : 

Should the inquiry be made why so humble an individu- 
al as myself ventures to come before you by this written 
proxy instead of being personally present, I indulge the 
hope that my four score and six years, together with the 
manifest inconvenience and hazard of being absent from 
home especially at this season of the year, may be accepted 
for what might in other circumstances be considered at least 
a venturesome and unwelcome intrusion. 

Leaving wholly out of sight, if it be possible, all other 
considerations, the moral question alone is of so deep and 
broad an interest, not only to this commonwealth, but to 
humanity everywhere, as to call for (allow me most respect- 
fully to say it) the most candid and patient attention, the 
best wisdom, and the most faithful report of your honorable 
committee. 

With these views, allow me to offer to your consideration 
the following Historical Remarks, and Incidental Observa- 
tions respecting the Mechanic Street Burial Ground, and 
more especially in regard to the interest and concern of 
surviving relatives and friends who yet reside in Worcester, 
and elsewhere in nearer or more distant towns, cities and 
states, of our broad and common country. 



HISTORICAL REMARKS. 



No. I. 

It is painful, from the nature of some subjects and the position of those 
most interested in them, to speak of them at all to the public ear. And 
yet, when spoken of indiscreetly by others, not to I'eply seems like acqui- 
escing in the mischief they recommend. When such indiscretion is kindly 
meant, the reluctance to gainsay is not the less on that account, though the 
hope of a candid hearing and a forbearing hand gives encouragement to 
speak with no resentful plainness. 

The writer of this was in hopes that the project in the ^gis of the 8th, 
to annihilate at a blow, the Burial Ground on Mechanic Street, would, like 
the large majority of editorial paragraphs, expire with the cry that an- 
nounced its birth, and thus spare the necessity of a remonstrance against 
well meant, but ill considered zeal for the living and the dead. At least, 
such was the deserved fate of a crude sclieme to disturb the sleeping dust of 
so many of all grades of kindred — the kindred of so many yet living, some 
in sight of those graves, and others remembering them, witli hallowed asso- 
ciations, from distant parts of the country, whither they and their families 
are scattered. But a writer in the Spy of the 10th and IGth, whose initials 
are a prop to the cause his articles would support, gives assTirance that the 
project of the iEgis is contemplated with a hope of success which forbids its 
unresisted execution. 

AVe can readily believe that neither the editor of the ^gis, nor his coad- 
jutor in the Spy, has any kindred among those sleepers whose repose they 
are both, from motives of humanity, so solicitous to disturb. Though each 
professes, with unquestioned sincerity, a double concern, for the dead who 
are already dead, and the living who are yet alive, the whole of such con- 
cern is evidently nothing beyond that general and vague interest which is 
awakened by remote, indefinite, fjeble and fugitive associations. No sacred 
dust of father, mother, brother, sister, wife or child, whose affections have 
been intertwined with his, for many well remembered years, could have 
prompted the one to propose, with death's own apathy, to " sell the ground 
for a sum of money," and the other to estimate with so natural, though well 
imitated coldness, the " gravel " which as yet enclose or is mingled with 
more precious dust. Each of these writers must have forgot, in his zeal for 
exhumation and care of the town's exchequer, what indeed they cannot but 
know, that even the common earth, that is trampled with unconscious feet, 
acquires a reverence by that which is blended with it, and has been intrust- 
ed to its safe keeping till "the dead shall rise incorruptible." It is so by a 
wise and beneficent law of nature, co-extensive with mankind, in whatever 
age. and among all nations and tribes all round the globe. No matter what 
its philosophy, the fact is plain and out of dispute. To abrogate this law is 



to nullify the will of ITcavon. TTe who, in one w;iy, seeks to rid his nature 
of its original law, manifests his submission to it in a thousand other ways. 
Wholly to set aside that law would be wholly to undo himself — to break up , 
his social being, and (juench the first and last sparks of virtue given to warm 
the human breast. Let him who will, call it superstition, it is yet his mas- 
ter in spite of himself, ordained to be so by the will of God for the well- 
being of man. 

For one, the writer of this article is more than unwilling, is wholly 
averse, to believe that the contemplated trespass on the sanctuary of the 
dead will be so unresisted and uncared for as its advocates have ventured to 
imagine and hope. To him, without adopting either the benediction or the 
curse, there is yet something true to human sympathy, and to which man's 
heart is every where responsive, in the epitaph which Shakspeare, ihe 
wisest commentator on the human heart, caused to be inscribed on his own 
monument : 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 

To dig the dust inclosed here : 

Blest be the man that spares these stones, 

And cursed be lie that moves my bones." 

Tho project to disinter the multitude of all ages, who have been inhumed, 
some lor more than half a century, in the Mechanic Street Burial Groimd, 
is liable to so many validobjections, that it is diificult, within proper limits, to 
expose them all, or indeed to exhibit any with that force and fulness which 
the whole truth would require. If, in our remarks, the selection of topics 
shall not be the most judicious, care shall be taken to introduce none that is 
unimportant ; and if the manner shall fail to be what some might desire, it 
shall at least be as courteous as may comport with an honest plainness of 
speech, such as the nature and condition of the subject seem to demand. 

In respect, then, to the proposal to convoke a Town-meeting, to empty at 
once a thousand graves, and carry off their quiet owners, none knows whith- 
er, and under the supervision of none knows whom, though, in many cases, 
they would be certain to be strangers to the untimely risen dead, if not to 
the country itself, there are questions which may well be put, though not so 
well answered by the advocates of so unusual an experiment on the endur- 
ance of humanity. 

We might, not impertinently, inquire into the rights of Towns in such 
matters, and the rights of individuals as well as communities. We might 
inquire into the nature and extent of the pledge which seems to be at least 
virtually given to those who bury their dead in a public cemetery, and 
whether a Town that has authorized such sepulture has any reserved right, 
either from the nature of its powers or any special provision of the statute 
book, to eject the tenants of the grave at its own deliberate will, or as pop- 
ular caprice may be blown in the direction of such an experiment on the 
dead and tlie living. 

We might ask, without any extravagant presumption, whether, both to 
the dead and their surviving friends, a pledge is not given, for full and cer- 
tain reliance, that the repose of the grave shall be protected by the public 
care and vigilance, and not be broken by the popular wisdom of to-day, that 
may be its repented folly to-morrow. 

Should we go a step further, and inquire in behalf of absent relatives gone 
to other Towns and States, whose spirits not seldom come back, as on a holy 
pilgrimage, to re-visit the homes of their childhood, and the graves of their 



7 

sires and other cherished kin, we ruight ask for the wherefore of their con- 
fidence in the unbroken slumber of the grave, and on what reliable pledge 
they erected, ere they left, with mingled hope and sadness, their own birth- 
place and their fathers' sepulchres, those monumental tablets which record 
the names and times and resting places of death's lowly sleepers, and which 
tell the passing traveller, himself journeying to his long home, of the cheer- 
ful triumphant faith of those who reached theirs first, — the faith of "life 
and immortality," expressed in words like these : 

God, my Redeemer, lives. 

And ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches all my dust. 

Till He shall bid it rise. 

Should we ask, once more, in behalf of those whose friends were always 
few — those needy ones, who, when alive, had on all the face of the globe no 
certain dwelling place, nor foot of earth they called their own, but under 
whose ill-fed ribs there beat a heart like every other heart, and who, in ex- 
pectation of no monumental stone, 

" Their bones from insult to protect," 

yet hoped, when their last worldly toil and sorrow should be over, to own 
within that earth a peaceful narrow bed — should we ask what bred in their 
bosoms this strong and cherished hope, though no kindred should be left be- 
hind to watch their last sleep, and defend their honest title to a grave, what 
response would come back to us to meet the feelings which naturally prompt 
these inquiries ? This the JEgis and the Spy have already told. 

"Were we to persevere and pry sharply into these matters, and question, 
not those committed journals, nor yet the aspiring obelisk and chiseled urn 
of some new, assorted cemetery, where wealth and fashion hoard up there 
pride and grief together, but of those slaty grave-stones of the old " Com- 
mon " burial-ground, which are plucked up, dragged off, and dashed into 
pieces, almost from week to week, under the warned but regardless eyes of our , 
municipal fathers, commonly called, for their worth and wisdom, Select- 
men, we might then, from such effrontery to all that is decent and sacred, 
be persuaded, though against nature and truth, that public grave-yards are 
indeed an unpledged, irresponsible trust, and that not only Towns, but who- 
soever will, may desecrate the grave, and make the sepulchres of whole 
generations the wanton sport of giddy youth, or chosen ravage-ground of 
full grown avarice. 



No. II. 

The ^gis in its programme of wholesale exhumation, under the very 
significant title of " an old burial ground," seeks to ingratiate its re- 
pulsive project by words of " hiffh regard fo?- the dead," and " tender fulfil- 
ment of duty," devolved on the living. It also places much reliance, for the 
accomplishment of its indirect scheme, on some recent " advance of public 
sentiment." 

"We take the liberty, however, to assure the editor of that respectable 
journal, that such regard for the dead as would be demonstrated by turning 



them out of their graves, that portion of the living who truly represent the 
dead will be most gratified to dispense with, and the earlier he shall wholly 
give over the hope manifesting such regard, the sooner will their feelings 
be relieved who have been visited with his proffered kindness. 

As to the " advance of public sentiment in all matters of this nature," 
on which is placed so flattering a confidence by the -('Egis, it may be found, 
after all, an idle speculation rather than a sober fact. We have, of late, 
heard much, very much, of some wonderful revolution in human nature, 
which some peculiar property of the nineteenth century, or some incantation 
of its wizzards, has happily brought about, though, as yet, we have not had 
the good fortune to witness the brilliant and oft boasted result. Nor, hav- 
ing already lived so long in this old fashioned world, dare we hope to reach 
the happy period, when, by the "advance of public sentiment," the relatives 
and near friends of the dead shall desire, consent, or endure to have their 
remains unsepulchred, and borne away from fixed hallowed associations to 
some place of no previous interest whatever. To us, the time seems far dis- 
tant when men shall hasten to annihilate the natural and cherished senti- 
ments of their hearts, and desire that the very ground which has treasured . 
up so faithfully the dust of loved ones, be delved, and shoveled off, and in- 
stead of graves and monuments, have stretched over it " the line of confu- 
sion and the stones of emptiness." 

There is much more of permanence and consistency in the principle of 
human nature, and far more to be relied on in the uniformity of its develop- 
ments, than the admirers of such a revolution of man's soul are willing we 
should suspect. It is the misfortune, if not the sin, of not a few minds, — 
some of them of undoubted brilliancy though of much questioned wisdom, 
— to confound recent modifications of matter with the fixed laws of mind. 
Because the impulse of steam and the long instant leap of artificial light- 
ning are in many things, fast changing the condition of the world and tying 
its ends together, they are more than half persuaded that some equal if not 
more wonderful change must have taken place, or is about to be exper- 
ienced, in the physical and moral constitution of man. 

While some rapturously believe, and would force their faith on other 
minds, that learning, wisdom and virtue are henceforth to have but lit- 
tle more to contend with, and indeed nothing more than the prejudices of a 
few obstinate old fellows whom time will soon push out of the way, and 
that hereafter the children of men are to be all but born with those gifts 
which hitherto have been such slow and painstaking acquisitions, others 
would persuade their neighbors, that, by an " advance of public sentiment," 
the ever gushing springs of grief to the human heart have shrunk all away, 
and that brighter and fuller fountains of feehng have broke forth to cheer 
and fertilize what hitherto had been the parched and barren desert of life. 

For us. we confess it, we have seen no such vision, nor, as yet, feel we 
authorized to indulge in such hope. Nay, further, the longer we live, and 
the more we try to see the world as it is, the less are we Hkely to be daz- 
zled with these visions of man which would extinguish the light of his own 
long experience, and cast into dark eclipse the revealed wisdom of God. 
We must see something far more extraordinary than anything we have yet 
seen, to make us give up the evidence of our senses and the testimony of 
all past time, for the more brilliant dreams of wakeful enthusiasm. Till 
children come of rosebuds, instead of springing from the stock of Adam, 
or till those already born in the common course of nature shall jump out of 



their skins and soar aloft with the bright plumasje of angels, we shall yet 
believe that he who would best understand human nature and its true sus- 
ceptibilities, while poring over it in his own bosom, will do well, and best 
of all, to read it by the light of that " old" book called The Bible. But if 
any are too nice and dainty for such a repast, or if that book is too religious 
for his taste, and it tlie reading of it be too severe a task for his refined and 
classic nerves, let him ponder on the exposition of man in the dramas of 
Shakespeare and the essays of Addison. Let him, if he will, consent by. 
any means to be wise, go back yet further in the records and commentaries 
which show what man has been in his essential, constitutional, abiding ele- 
ments, and turn over, with exploring eyes, the shrewd and pointed as well 
as graceful verse of Horace, and the yet more distant but not less full- 
fraught lore of Homer, and he will learn, unless wholly given over to delu- 
sion, that wisdom has always had children to justify her claims. He will 
understand, by so doing, that as face answereth to face in the water, just bo , 
the heart of man in one age finds its image reflected in every other, and 
that it is far better to study, with sober eyes, the realities of life, than to dream, 
with brilliant fancies, of things that never were and never can be. Then, 
when he has come to his unmistitied senses, will he know, beyond all doubt, 
that a burial ground, however common, however " old," is the place in which 
those who sleep there, expected to " lie down and rise not again till the 
heavens be no more ;" that it is the place to which surviving kindred fol-. 
lowed them in the freshness and fulness of their grief; that it is the placie 
which the feet of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and 
sisters have visited with cautious, melancholy steps, and from which their 
own hopes have been lifted above the weakness and sorrow of this world ; 
that it is the place where, from time to time, hallowed associations have been 
gathered, which can be transferred to no other spot under the whole canopy' 
of heaven, how much soever the luxurianceof nature and the prodigality of 
art may contribute to make the abode of the dead the attraction of the liv- 
ing. He who will thus read, will be assured, beyond suspicion of mistake, 
that no silent retirement, no solemn shade, no sculptured marble, no, noth- 
ing whatever, that can decorate, disguise, or make significant the solemnity 
of death's house, can compensate for those broken associations which love 
and grief and time have made to cluster round the Jlrst burial plate of friends 



ISTo. III. 

Among the special grievances which constitute special reasons for vacat- 
ing a populous grave-yard, and driving through it, at a bargain, " stern ruin's 
ploughshare," are the weighty facts set forth in the following statement of 
the JEgis : — 

" It is seldom that one can pass along the lower end of Mechanic street 
without seeing clotheslines heavy laden swinging in all directions over the 
graves, or noisy boys, quite as careless and ruthless as they are noisy, or 
men smoking with iudiflference and mirth within those grounds." 

This is indeed a grave accusation against three distinct classes of offend- 
ers — the women, the men, and the boys. It is not our purpose to question 
the general correctness of either of the several counts of the indictment 
9 ' 



10 

though, having ourselves passed, for several years, " along the lower end of 
Mechanic street," about 305 times in each year, we do not remember t> 
have seen, in a single instance, " men smoking," either with or without 
'- mirth" within those grounds. Possibly we may have seen, in rare in- 
stances not treasured up, such a sight as the ^gis has been so familiar with 
and is so much grieved at. But be that as it may, or- admitting the full 
statement, could not the ^gis so confide in its doctrine of " the advance of 
public sentiment in all these matters" as to give earlier notice of this ascer- 
tained fact, and thus bring that well grown sentiment to bear in the removal 
of his alleged grievance, Instead of the removal, against the whole world's 
and all time's consent, of a whole grave-yard, with all that is gathered in it, 
and all that is erected on it " Sacred to the Memory' of its inhabitants ? 
Such insufficiency and allsufficiency of '" public sentiment in all these mat- 
ters," seem to depend very much on which end of the telescope the philoso- 
pher chooses to bring to his eye. If, on the part of the men, an evil exists 
so aggravated as the iEgis alleges, one would think a remedy might be 
found by a less desperate resort than that journal recommends. 

But the women, if not the greatest, are not the least of the transgressors 
complained of. Does the iEgis indeed think that their government is so ir- 
resistible, or so unpersuadeable, that not only the living town must submit 
without a remonstrance or entreaty, but that the dead also must abandon 
their graves and give up the enclosing earth to their supremacy ? How 
then, shall he hope, after such acknowledgment of their right of possession, 
to drive the wistful bargain of the town, and '' sell the ground for a sum of 
money ?' If we cannot fully agree with the iEgis as to the amount of sin 
committed by the women who in its indictment, as of old, are placed "first 
in the transgression," we do admit that their off'eiice is much more showy, 
and that if fewer of their white flags should flutter there in the breeze, 
not only the chivalry of the ^Egis but the feelings of the community at 
large would be, even more than they already are, indebted to woman's kind- 
ness. 

And yet, if we might, without too much offence, make one exception, 
and, intercede for any, it should be worthy "old Hepsy," whose dwelling 
joins death's door, that she may still enter ihe grave-yard in peace, and a 
little longer stretch her brief line from tree to tree, in its most unsettled 
corner. \t is only asking for a little patience for the last remnant of a tribe 
that have vanished away like the forests where they chased the panther and 
the deer. The fourscore and five years that have so bent her tall frame, 
and crippled her queenly step, plead much better than we that none molest 
or make her afraid. Soon in the sure course of nature her not " heavy laden" 
clothesline will be missing, with herself: but while she stays, perhaps a few 
months more, let her enjoy quietly her little privilege above the grave- 
yard's turf, and, if she chooses, let her at last sleep beneath it, in the silent 
neighborhood of her own generation, till the dead, both small and great, out 
of every tribe and nation, shall rise together. Then, when the distinctions 
and rivalries of earth shall be over, her work having been done and well 
done, shall she walk erect or grateful bow in that ever spotless robe, the 
gift of him who, as she trusts, hath " loved her and washed her from her 
sins in his own blood." 

But what shall be done with the boys, those " ruthless" sprigs of the new 
and hopeful generation who are to carry out the " advance of public senti. 



11 

ment" to its extreme of perfection, when their fathers, the remnants of 
nature as it used to be, shall have fallen asleep ? If they had not been, ac- 
cording to the testimony of the ^gis, " ruthless as they are noisy," we might 
take up their defence and plead in mitigation of their last mentioned crime, 
that to be '• noisy" is part of their original sin, and that they came as hon- 
estly by it as did their now more silent fathers. 

We ourselves have seen children there, boys and girls, Anglo-Saxon, 
Hibernian, and Anglo-Saxo-Africans. Nor were we overgrieved to see 
them there ; at least, not enough so as to wish the destruction of the grave- 
yard, with all unspeakable concomitants. If there was any thing at all of- 
fensive either in their presence or their noise, we were at least assured that 
on that cherished spot consecrated to the dead by holier drops than are shed 
by sprinkling priest, they breathed a more life-giving air than they were 
wont to inhale in stifled streets and pent-up dwelling — yea purer than can 
ever be breathed there when the spirit of speculation and improvement, so 
called, shall have sold the ground for a " large sum" of money. 

Had we been disposed to chide those children for their thoughtless noise, 
•could we have helped remembering our own boyhood days, when other rest- 
less feet, such as Nature gives to children, gambole'd time and again over the 
same sober place, as nimble-footed and light-hearted as we ? Nor have 
we quite forgot a whole gathering of grievances akin to that of chil- 
dren's playfulness. We remember when the squirrel jumped there from 
one long narrow hillock to another, and climbed the tallest head-stone, and 
raised his ruddy banner, and scolded away, with flippant bickering, at the 
young intruders on his prescriptive domain. And, even now, there come 
up, at the mysterious bidding of memory, the happy mirthful birds that 
haunted there or flew up thither from the subjacent meadow and the neigh- 
boring thicket, what time Spring had chased from the grave-yard the icy 
feet of Winter, and put on her glad-green mantle thick-sprinkled with floral 
stars ; or Summer gilded with down-flung splendor all the ground, and sent 
thither the frolic zephyrs to dance among the graves their giddy whirl ; or 
many-hued gaudy Autumn, with her bright goldenrod and other un-sad 
flowers, profaned, as even in their season, with gayest livery the sober fleld 
of death. There the robin piped his mellow honest matins, and the whip- 
poorwill, at measured intervals, half sung, half whistled his wild boding 
vespers, and the fire-plumed hang-bird, above its pensile thread-built air- 
hung castle, chanted its full clear liquid lay; and the glossy jet wing finch, 
on its spear-girt thistle-throne, or, sultan-like, on the milk-weed' 
flossy mat, shone rich in royal gold ; and the frisky wren, hopping and flit- 
ting, twittered to its mate its shrill melodious ditty ; and the unaspiring 
sparrow chirped rejoicingly over its rising brood ; and the gay red wing 
black-bird on some selected perch keeps honest lonely vigil, and utters his time- 
ly hushnote to the hunger peep of nestlings among the bulrushes in the sub- 
jacent meadow ; and the more sober lark swelled high and sweet, or 
sunk, with pensive cadence, its brief heavenward hymn ; and the shy 
trim woodland thrash with brimful joy, warbled all abroad, from the sum- 
mit of the hazel copse, its matchless nuptial song ; and to aid the choral 
melody, the saucy cream-capped boblink, as it fluttered by with feigned 
trepidation, to beguile suspected rovers from its nest, or sat perched, like 
a sentinel, on the tall, slender birch tree's topmost twig, jingled off its 
tinkling giggling ridiculous jargon, well pleased and pleasing all with its 
giddy, yet most articulate nonsense. All these, and more were there ; for 



12 

the merry social cricket, the swift whirring beetle, the bright-glancing fire-fly, 
gilding with tiny flash the solemn misty eve, and the grasshopper, piping 
shrilly in the blaze of sultry noon, while the renovated butterfly, just 
risen from the decay of its air-hung coffin, hovered among the wihl- 
flowers, fanning the fainting rose or kissing the lily's ruddy bloom; these, 
and a nameless multitude of other joyful things, mingled their various 
revelry, as if Nature never meant any spot of earth to be consecrated to 
melancholy, or cursed with never relieved sadness. 

And, kind friends, say, who shall be offended if, with other light-hearted 
creatures, children do now and then lift up their life-toned voices even in 
the sad solemn precincts of silent death ? We do not, of course, desire or 
expect that such an enclosure shall be their ordinary and most familiar play- 
ground, but we will be the last to place such interdict on what has ever been, 
as to make the grave give up its dead befure God's time, for no direr neces- 
sity than such a profanation of their resting-place. When went there by a 
time that did not witness, without concern, the bounding feet and heart-full 
shout of children even in the solemn church-yard ? If their unthinking 
gambols in and over such places were to justify and demand the untimely 
rending of sepulchres, what ancient venerable house of death in the land 
whence came the Pilgrims, would not long since have been uninhabited, and 
have disappeared from all human knowledge ? Who lias not read, in story 
and in song, that children's feet do not desecrate any the most sacred dust 
over which they happen to rove with merry hearts ? 

"There's a white stone placed upon yonder tomb, 
Beneath is a soldier lyin.ir ; 

The death-wound came amid sword and plume, 
When banner and ball were flying. 

" Yet now he sleeps, the turf on his breast 

By wet wild-flowers surrounded ; 
The church shadow falls o'er Jiis place of resi. 

Where the steps of his childhoud buvnded." 



:s o. IV. 

The ^gis of the 22d, with a parting arrow, gives notice of its retirement 
from the field it so gallantly entered. It has also proclaimed its reliance 
for the success of its enterprise, on a stouter champion. Perhaps this was 
" the better part of valor." In a diflflcult but defensible cause, we should 
certainly commend it to such discretion, not reluctant ourselves to rely on 
the force of such an arm. If" A. D. F." should fail of success in any cause 
for which he buckles on his armor, it might not unaptly be written over him 

Si Perfjama dextra 
Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent. 

But though the iEgis seems knowingly to speak, as if with authority it 
could appoint its champion, we question such prerogative in the present in- 
stance, notwithstanding the concurrent appearance of " A. D. F." in the 
Transcript of the 22d. Nor do we assume or believe that " A. D. F." has 
courted any reliance on his championship. We appreciate too well his un- 



13 

^erstanding and his heart to suspect him of having any inkling for a com- 
mission, by demand of service or as a volunteer, to such an office. We are 
not slow to think that rather than to aspire to the high place of combat, and 
mingle with the clang and tumult of arms, he would much prefer, 

" Alons the cool sequestered vale of life, 
To hold the noiseless tenor of his way." 

Regarding him then neither as a commander nor a subaltern, but as one 
who speaks and acts for himself, and, therefore,' as he thinks and feels, with- 
out the love of strife or pride of victory, we are persuaded he will not take 
it amiss, if, in the same spirit, we calmly examine into the correctness of 
facts, on which, as illustrations of his principle, he seems confidently to rely. 

In proof of his main position, the propriety of vacating a populous grave- 
yai-d, and removing the earth which contains, and is mingled with, the ashes 
of the dead, he adduces the example of the worthy and enlightened citizens 
of New Haven, in performing a somewhat similar pious office a few years 
since. His own words, which are as follows, will best express his premises 
and conclusions. 

" So far as the writer knows, the Cemetery in New Haven was the first 
in New England, which was in any degree ornamentally laid out. There, 
the biirying-ground was in the heart of the city, and constituted what is now 
the beautiful Common. Through the instrumentality of that enlightened 
and public spirited citizen, the late James Hillhouse, the Cemetery lot was 
procured and laid out ; the graves, except those now under the meeting 
houses, were removed to the Cemetery, and the old burying ground given 
up to public uses. Through that ground, the street which is now so beau- 
tiful, with its arching elms, was opened. Whose feelings were hurt by this 
change? Who now regrets it ? So it would be here." 

As the foregoing is "A. D. F.'s " chosen illustration of the principle he 
desires should be prevalent, and still attempts to make so, notwithstanding 
the decided and most deliberate opposition of many near relatives and 
friends of those whose exhumation is contemplated ; and as the notable ex- 
ample of the good people of New Haven is the only instance he adduces, 
if not the only one he can adduce, that can well bear on this question, let 
those whom he would persuade to adopt his views, see how stands the test- 
fact he has set up for their light. 

Let them first look at his statement that " the hurying-groiind — in the 
heart of the city, — constituted what is now the beautiful Common" How 
do the alleged and real facts correspond ? In the old part of the city there 
are two large Commons, or "Greens" as they are there called, divided from 
each other by Temf)le street, so named for the churches which stretch along 
its upper border. The lower one, which is level, and which, for its greater 
magnitude and excelling beauty, is called " The Green," and which corres- 
ponds with " A. D. F.'s" description of "7%e beautiful Common," was nev- 
er used as a burial place. And as to the upper Green which rises gently 
toward the College, (Salve, magna Parens /) the fact is this : all but a small 
part of it — the burial ground that jutted out a little way, not where the 
^'■meeting-houses" stand, but in the rear of the Centre Church only — had 
its present dimensions time out of mind before the period contemplated by 
" A. D. F." when the breaking up of the dead was so wisely decreed for 
the accommodation of tliemselves and the living. Such is the history of 
" the beautiful Common." 



14 

We come now to the assertion which informs us of the laying out of 
Temple street, viz : " Through that ground [the old burying place] the 
street which is note so beautiful, ^oith its arching elms, was opened." — As to 
this, what say those very elms ? — They are of age and can speak for them- 
selves. When we held sweet converse with them some six and thirty years 
ago, rejoicing in their cool and grateful shade and admiring their stately 
columns and the dignified grace of their then overarching boughs, the spirit 
that was in them whispered to us of the wisdom and the kindness of still 
older men who had long before planted that verdurous avenue for genera- 
tions who should rise up and call them blessed. The street which ran 
through their long stout files, was probably coeval with the city, having on 
it, in our early days, churches then venerable for their age as well as their 
holy use. Such is the real history of that street ; and how unlike its fan- 
cied origin ! 

Let us next attend to the statement, by no means the least important, 
that " the graves, except those now under the meeti?ig-honses, were removed to 
the Cemetery, and the old burying-ground given up to public uses" Is it so ? 
We only wonder that one usually so cautious and correct should have fal- 
len into such a series of errors. Had he considered for a moment, in this 
case, what he also seems not to have duly thought of in that which is near- 
er home, he would have seen the impossibility of what he has regarded as 
an easy and most commendable fact. We can hardly suspect him of not 
having known that the grave of Eaton, the first governor of the Colony of 
New Haven, and the graves of Whalley and Dixwell who adjudged Charles 
the First to the scaffold were made there, with thoS'e of many early settlers 
of the city. And how could the bodies or the identified dust that had lain 
there nearly two hundred years be snatched off to some other experimental 
place of repose ? 

Ask the citizens of New Haven if they have done the deed imputed to 
them, and they will quick reply, "No ! We have never desired or dared to 
make the attempt. Our fathers' sepulchres are with us unto this day, their 
ashes untouched by any but the invisible and inevitable hand of Time." 

The people of that city have not as yet surrendered the safeguards of hu- 
manity to the ravages oi improvement. Instead of suffering the rude mon- 
uments of the early inhabitants to be, as on our old Common burial-ground 
they are, wantonly plucked up and shattered in broad day-light, they have 
treasured them up with religious care, though we are not quite sure that the 
wisdom of the head was quite equal to the intention of the heart, when they 
displaced those monuments to marshall them as a crowded detachment of 
cenotaphs in the new Cemetery. 

Had they, as is done around the old " Granary " burial ground on a 
principal street of our metropolis, erected on a granite, or their own free- 
stone base an appropriate palisade, and planted among those monuments 
trees such as composed the forest when it shaded the home of the New 
Haven Pilgrims, they would have given additional vigor to the principle of 
respect for the dead, which they have so carefully nourished, in accordance 
with the common sentiment of mankind. Then would they have had on 
that Green a beauty, both natural and moral, for which the plastered bur- 
lesque of Grecian architecture on the border of that grave yard can never 
begin to compensate. 

Wliatever truth touclifs the heart works a part of the process ordained 
for wisdom, virtue and ha;)piiiess. The external history of the dead has 



15 

furnished many an interesting page for the contemplation of the living. As 
that part of it which relates to the Pilgrim sleepers at New Haven is not a 
little instructive on the subject of these articles, we devote to it anothei 
number. 



No. V. 

In our last we examined certain premises of" A. D. F.," from which, for 
himself, but especially for others, he drew the conclusion that the annihila- 
tion of the Mechanic Street Burial Ground would be a deed fit in itself, and 
most agreeable to all concerned. The conclusion was in different forms, af- 
firmative and interrogative — the questions not seeking knowledge, but giv- 
ing instruction with the force of emphatic affirmations. 

After setting forth an analogous destruction at New Haven, and the 
beauty that sprang up from the ruin, surpassing the fabled temple of Jupi- 
ter with its oak and linden shades, he asks andaffirms,'''' Whose feelmgs were 
hurt at the change ? Who now regrets it ? So it would he here ; " as much 
as to say, the wise and humane deed at New Haven, instead of being mat- 
ter of regret to any, was a source of gratification to all ; and as such was the 
happy consequence of ruin there, so the like universal gratification would be 
the effect of an equal or greater ruin here. We believe this paraphrase is 
nowhere outside of the text it means to represent. 

We have no where questioned, we do not doubt, the sincerity or the kind 
intention of that text, or of the chapters to which it is so intimately related. 
We are well persuaded that their author would be the last among the late to 
wound the feelings of any whose feelings might be hurt by the process he 
recommends, and the good result of which he illsturates by the light of so 
notable an example. But if that light, like the bewildering phantom that 
is said sometimes to hover in the misty night over neglected graves, has dis- 
appeared and left the trustful conclusion that followed it, in the dark, it is 
yet further due to our subject, to this community, and especially to the citi- 
zens of New Haven, to make the example of the latter as effective as their 
regard for the memory of the dead has been signal. We should do injust- 
ice to " A. D. F." if we thought him not enough ingenuous to allow without 
displeasure the most public appearance and the clearest light of truth, cer- 
tainly at least so far as to replace the good name of New Haven where it 
was, before a mistake had depressed it from its just elevation. 

We remember, as if that day were now shining, when that goodly city 
was moved with a sensation to which its equanimity is not often subjected, 
and which slight causes are not able to effect. It was nothing less than the 
fear that the dead might be untimely disturbed in their graves. In 1812, 
when, on account of its age and the need of larger accommodations, the 
First Church on Temple street, was taken down, the parish worshippiTig 
there resolved to extend the rear of the new edifice a little distance upon 
the old burying ground. This must be done or they must forsake the cher- 
ished associations of the place where their fathers worshipped, and they 
were dedicated and dedicated themselves to God. Such associations are 



16 

very strong, and all good associations are useful, and useful in proportion 
to tlieir strength. But by many it was apprehended tiiat in sinking the 
foundation of the new building, the ashes of the dead would be reached and 
disturbed. The conse(|uence was an irritation and a ferment which can 
hardly be credited by any who look on such cause as a light matter. Men 
of respectability, and some high in public stations, were ready, among that 
law-abiding people, to trample on law itself, and to arrest with violence a 
desecration of graves ; nor until a reliable assurance was had that not even 
the house of God should molest the sanctuary at its foot, was the animosity 
pacified to a decent calm. This we believe was the first outbreak at New 
Haven for the protection of ancient graves. 

Years after, we cannot say when, it also became necessary to take down 
the old State House on the up|)er Green beside the same burying ground, 
and to re-build there a larger edifice for the same use. A renewed appre- 
hension of trespass on j^raves created a fresh ferment. Kindred of the 
dead, and others who from special causes had respect for their memory, 
with still others whose sentiments, kindled by the occasion, were the com- 
mon sentiments of mankind, were made fervid to the boiling point by this 
renewed apprehension of sacrilege. Nor did their heat subside except by 
an assurance like that which allayed the preceeding tumult. Such is part 
of the external history of the dead in the old burying ground at New 
Haven. The rest we shall give as we find it at hand in a '' Report " by the 
learned Professor Olmstead, who, as a good man must, contemplates alter- 
nately the grave and the skies. Should it be read by those whose attention 
needs most to be called to the subject, we cautiously indulge a faint hope 
that it may, instead of demolishing the Mechanic Street Burial Ground, do 
something to protect from further insult the more ancient grave yard on 
our Common. 

" At a court of Common Council for the city of New Haven, holden 
Oct. 27, 1820. a committee was appointed to take into consideration the 
situation of the ancient burying ground : — who reported ' that said ground 
was in a condition of total neglect, and going to ruin, in a manner which 
they deemed inconsistent with the religious and moral sense of this commu- 
nity, and indicating a want of decent respect for the memory of the dead.' 
Among other suggestions the committee expressed the opinion that ' the 
greatest respect which can be paid to the memory of the dead and the feel- 
ings of the survivors, would be shown by the erection of a solid and perma- 
nent wall around the ancient ground.' * But if the prevailing opinions of 
the citizens shall be opposed to any enclosure of the ancient ground,' they 
suggested the removal of the monuments to the new grotmd." 

•'This report was accepted by the Common Council, and it was voted, 
' that it is expedient that measures be adopted for the removal of the monu- 
ments, [and] for the erection of a common monument in the rear of the 
Centre Church." 

" The court of Common Council unanimously recommended to the May- 
or, to call a city meeting, which was accordingly convened Nov. 30, 1820. 
And it was voted that, ' as the course proposed is respectful to the memory 
of the dead, and satisfactory to the feelings of the surviving relatives, it is 
proper that this city assume the expense of the same, to the extent of the 
sum proposed." 

•' After the committee had made every preparation for the removal, 
PUBLIC SERViCK was held in the Centre Church on the morniDij of the 



17 

26th of June, 1821. A great concourse was assembled, and the exercises 
were performed in a very impressive and appropriate manner, by the Rev. 
clergy of the different denominations, and a funeral address prepared by 
Abraham Bishop, Esq., was pronounced, abounding in eloquent and im- 
pressive sentiments suited to the occasion." 

"• After the religious services in the church, the committee,* accompanied 
by the President and officers of the college, commenced the work of the re- 
moval, by conveying the monuments of officers and students to the new col- 
lege square, [in the Cemetery.] Their next care was the removal, on ap- 
plication of survivors, of monuments into family lots in the new ground. 
All the other monuments were then removed to city square No. 1." 

This narrative of transactions at New Haven, extracted from the " Re- 
port " drawn up by Professor Olmstead, as chairman of a committee of 
thirty-two respectable citizens, " appointed to inquire into the condition of 
the New Haven Burying Ground," furnishes apt instruction to those inter- 
ested in the subject of these articles. 

Each part of the history of the dead at New Haven is interesting, an^ 
each throws a clear light on the project of disinterment and devastation 
here. It is difficult to say which part of that history is better fitted to in- 
struct any who need wisdom in such matters — that which was reverently 
not done by the citizens of New Haven, or that which they reverently did. 
In honoring the memory of their fathers, they honored themselves ; and in 
the spirit of both their proceedings iind refrainings, they have set an exam- 
ple worthy of the renown of their city. Our community have been called 
upon to admire their example of an enlightened humanity Let this call 
not be forgotten, nor its inonitoi-y wisdom forsaken. When a like regard 
for the peace of graves and care Vor the monuments which mark the place of 
sepulture, shall characterize the citizens of Worcester, there will be, amidst 
much else that reflects honor on the town, no fictitious " advance of public 
sentiment" in such matters. The improvement, instead of being in men's 
fancies, will be before their eyes. Then will the reproach, as was that at 
New Haven, be wiped away here, that the burial grounds in Mechanic 
Street and on the Common are " in a condition of total neglect, and going to 
ruin, in a manner inconsistent with the religious and moral sense of this 
community, and indicating a ivant of decent respect for the memory of the 
dead.'" 



*James Hillhouse, Abraham Bishop, Samuel Merwhi, Harry Crosswell, Nathaniel 
W. Taylor, William Thatclier, William Mix. 



3 1907 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



11 



014 079 639 6 



